Delivery drivers for Oakhurst Dairy won their suit against the Portland milk and cream company, after a U.S. court of appeals found that the wording of Maine’s overtime rules were written ambiguously. Per state law, the following activities are not eligible for overtime pay:

Oakhurst argued that “distribution of” was separate from “packing for shipment,” which would allow the company to claim exemption from paying its delivery drivers over time. In trying to prove lawmakers’ intent, Oakhurst even pointed to Maine’s legislative style guide, which advises against using the Oxford comma.

“For want of a comma, we have this case,” U.S. appeals judge David J. Barron wrote.

The appeals court ruled in favor of the five delivery drivers Monday, citing the “remedial purpose” of the state’s overtime laws as reason to interpret them liberally. So rejoice, grammar nerds, and know that the law is on your side.

“I mean the fragility I witness when a student misses an assignment because he simply forgot to check the syllabus, or when a student speaking aloud in class for the first time starts shaking, or when a student who is handed back an incomplete paper with a C on it immediately tears up. I am talking about the fragility that follows their separation from the structured patterns of high school and middle school, as they are thrown into a world where the future is unknown. There are no more good-job-dinosaur-with-a-thumb-up stickers for simply getting a task done in college. That lack of consistent positive reinforcement often discourages and upsets them, especially in a writing class where so much depends on the transcription of our own personal visions and interpretations.”

Her answer to this problem is that “[w]e must make it clear to our students that mistakes and failure are a part of learning.” She writes, “To help my students with this, one of the first things I do every semester is make them understand that a bad grade is just that, a bad grade, and that it should push them to do better the next time. Often the bad grade stems from a lack of motivation, energy, and time. We must make it clear to our students that mistakes and failure are a part of learning.”

This may be easier said than done in a climate of grade-inflation and student entitlement, but for those of us teaching–especially in the writing classroom–Popescu’s article reminds us that if we want to be successful, we have to try to make our students understand that growth is more important than grades.

First of all, if you just figured out MLA, don’t panic. Most of the changes in the eighth edition look to be changes for the better. That is to say, they make documentation more straightforward.

Most significantly, the source type is no longer considered. That’s right, you no longer have to worry about whether a source is a newspaper or a magazine or a travel brochure before you can determine how to cite it. All sources now follow the same basic guidelines for works cited entries:

Author

Title of Source

Title of Container

Other contributers

Version

Number

Publisher

Publication date

Publication location

Read more about how this will work and see other significant changes here.

This video does a pretty good job explaining how to outline for an essay. Keep in mind that you want to keep your ideas as short as possible so they are easier to see at a glance and that you don’t need to use roman numerals if you don’t want to. Dots and dashes or arrows and stars work just as well. The important thing is making each level distinct. Also, it is a good idea to write your complete thesis statement at the top of your outline rather than just the topic.

It’s nice when the rules of the language are simple to understand, and when there’s an interesting backstory that’s even better.

In the United States, periods and commas go inside quotation marks regardless of logic….There are peculiar typographical reasons why the period and comma go inside the quotation mark in the United States. The following explanation comes from the “Frequently Asked Questions” file of alt.english.usage: “In the days when printing used raised bits of metal, [periods and commas] were the most delicate, and were in danger of damage (the face of the piece of type might break off from the body, or be bent or dented from above) if they had [quotation marks] on one side and a blank space on the other. Hence the convention arose of always [putting commas and periods inside the closing quotes] regardless of logic.” – via Grammar Guide

Ruth Chang has a lot to say about her philosophy behind difficult choices. She advises you think less about which choice is better or worse, and more about what kind of person you want to be. If you think less about choosing the “right” option and more about how those choices define you, things may get more simple.

In my Composition II class, we recently read an article from an old issue of YM magazine on rites of passage for Amish girls. Young & Modern is traditionally written for an audience of teenage girls. Some of my students wanted to know how I had ever stumbled across the article in the first place?

Then today, this showed up in my inbox: an issue of YM that I’d totally read.

Thanks to Todd Stanton who did the mock up of this great Star Wars cover. I thought I’d post it here so everyone could have another good laugh.

Youtube’s Nerdwriter1 explains how Donald Trump’s natural speaking style uses repetition and rhythm to appeal to his audience and emphasize–almost subliminally–key ideas. While his overall presentation can is a bit halting and disorganized, it possesses a general sense of unity that makes it appealing to some listeners. Trump’s speech is furtive, redundant, and vague–not to mention hateful and discriminatory–but imagine how effective this strategy could be if you used it purposefully in a well-organized essay.